MP3 players are quickly falling away these days in favor of
having music in the cloud. After all, why settle for whatever your MP3 player
can hold, when you can get an endless number of songs from music streaming
sites and discover a bunch of new bands in the process? And the way the future is going, pretty soon you'll be hearing that music in your head while you dream at night. But for now, here are a few of th ebigest streaming radio sites for your phone.
Pandora
If you haven't heard of Pandora before now, welcome to the 21st century! Here's your complimentary smart-phone and Samsung Galaxy Tab
. Just kidding-everything costs like crazy. And to be honest, I hadn't even heard of this service myself until relatively late in the game, so I'm just emerging from the past time travel cave myself. Pandora markets itself
as the perfect way to find new music. The service is free, but you can upgrade to
$3.99 per month, or 3 dollars per month with the contract.
. Just kidding-everything costs like crazy. And to be honest, I hadn't even heard of this service myself until relatively late in the game, so I'm just emerging from the past time travel cave myself. Pandora markets itself
as the perfect way to find new music. The service is free, but you can upgrade to
$3.99 per month, or 3 dollars per month with the contract.
PROS
-192K bits per second
Quality on Pandora One
-24 Hour Free Trial
of Pandora One
-Personalized Music
Powered by Music Genome Project-This project is described as the “most
sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected.” It’s been in the
works for over 10 years, and it’s the engine behind giving you music similar to
the music you tell Pandora that you like.
-Pandora One is
ad-free
-Pandora Mobile App
is Free
-Pandora Available in
Cars: Cars like the 2011 and later BMW vehicles have Pandora on board. So
do the following-
·
2012 Regal
·
Verano
·
Lacross
·
2012 Chevy Sonic (with Bluetooth)
CONS
-Lack of Niche stations is a problem.
-Lacks on-demand streaming or playlists.
-Free option has a whole lot of ads.
Spotify
Spotify has a different approach to Pandora, since Pandora
focuses on a web browser for PC solutions, though obviously both have apps. For
Spotify you have to actually download software to set it up, it’s not play and
go like Pandora. The social media integration on Spotify tends to be the best
around though, so people who like sharing music with their friends will
probably love Spotify like crazy.
PROS
-Free song playlist
options.
-“Unlimited” Option
costs $4.99 per month: Desktop and laptop supported. No ads whatsoever and
no contract needed.
-“Premium” costs
$9.99 per month: Download any song you want and listen offline. All devices
supported. Free 30 day Trial.
-Browse Music
Collections of friends, artists, celebrities, etc. Listen to what people
you know are listening to, and post it to Facebook!
-Premium Sound
Quality
-Add lyrics to music
-Share music with
friends with embed link
CONS
-Free version is inundated with ads
-WMA tracks can be a problem
-Radio stations not as epic as something like Pandora.
Rdio
Rdio advertises itself has having more music that “you could
listen to in a lifetime.” It’s adding music constantly and its library is
already large enough that it may be hard for its competitors to keep up,
especially in the long run. If you want a streaming service that has just about
everything but the most obscure songs, Rdio is very likely going to be the
service you need.
PROS
-Library of 20
Million and Growing
-$4.99 per month for
unlimited Web streaming
-“Unlimited + Mobile”
is $9.99 per month. You get Sonus or Roku support too!
-“Unlimited Family”- Get
2 subscriptions for just $17.99. For a third it’s only $22.99. Third, 4th,
and 5th subscriptions are all half price!
-Rewind tracks as
much as you want!
-Search Music
CONS
-Rdio doesn’t have lyric support at all
-Lack of good support for indie artists.
Bottom Line: Which One Will I Want?
That depends on what you. So which is more important to you?
Huge Selection:
If having the biggest selection around is what you want in streaming music,
than Rdio is your best bet since they focus on that.
Great Social Options-
If what draws you to music is the sharing, than Spotify has one of the best
reputations for this. The comment adding ability is a unique one as well.
All about the radio
stations! If the radio stations and discovering new music is your thing,
then you can’t go wrong with Pandora. They have a huge engine behind
personalizing your stations for you.
